Laserwriter 630 pro

Rescued before it went to the curb - guy said it didn't 'work' with XP. A most excellent printer with parallel to hook to the HP printer server, ethernet for the Appleshare IP network and localtalk for the old machines...although i can bring up the localtalk bridge when necessary...

The ethernet requires one of the old aui type adapters. Box full in the closet so no problem. Haul out a parallel cable to hook to the jetdirect too.

Had to take it apart for cleaning which was the first problem - apple's site does not have the service manual just the user's manual and the regular source had to remove them under threat by apple lawyers. However, found a copy i had downloaded and saved to the file server sometime ago. Just pop up the top for the print cart and remove the single screw, then you can pull off the side panel where all the connectors are. Remove the 6 screws holding the 2 metal shields in place and you are in business.

First task after blowing out dust bunnies was to upgrade the ram. There are two 72 pin slots that take FP ram. EDO is not supposed to work so didn't try any. Add 2 x 16mb sticks and away we go. There is also an internal scsi hd connector but it seems an odd one - might require a special cable.

So we decided to add an external scsi hard disk. This requires the HD45 type scsi cable from a powerbook - no problem got a bunch but only one was long enough to connect directly to an external hard disk enclosure sitting next to the computer. The manual for the printer notes that not all hard drives will work, which was the case - i tried a 40, a 160, a 440 and a 230 before finding one that could be recognized. The 230 worked fine. The manual also notes you cannot use a standard 50 pin (beige) scsi terminator - i did not verify this as i had one of the apple black scsi terminators around so i used it.

Next we need to configure the printer, the easiest way seemd to be to use the apple printer utility which was downloaded from apple's site. This is an OS9 and earlier application - no problem, moved it over to the imac and ran it from there. It searches the net and gives you a list of printers.

Selected the 630 and connected. Set up all the interfaces to use postscript mode and turned on the printer enhancements (fineprint/photograde and turned off the startup page. It showed me the external HD was connected at scsi ID2. Initialized the disk. One tricky bit was the SEND button, after changing a setting you have to SEND the config to the printer.

The same tool also allows you to download fonts so selected all the ones on the imac (os9+msoffice+adobe) and downloaded them to the printer. Took a couple of minuites. Once done rebooted the printer and viola.

Next went to the windows machine and ran the HP network printer configuration tool. This is a free download from HP and i've used it a lot in preference to setting up network printers in windoze. Gave it the IP address of the jetdirect printer server (192.168.1.8)and setup the printer and printed a test page. Printed the postscript commands instead of executing them. Reconfigured the parallel port as PCL 4 and reinstalled - printed the test page but in wrong font size. No time to fix now and less important anyway...XP prints to the laserwriter 360 on the other jetdirect just fine. figure out when i get home.